Skip to main content

Charles W. Chesnutt to Booker T. Washington, 21 June 1902

Textual Feature Appearance
alterations to base text (additions or deletions) added or deleted text
passage deleted with a strikethrough mark deleted passage
passage deleted by overwritten added text Deleted text Added text
position of added text (if not added inline) [right margin] text added in right margin; [above line] text added above the line
page number, repeated letterhead, etc. page number or repeated letterhead
supplied text [supplied text]
archivist note archivist note
  CHAS. W. CHESNUTT, ATTORNEY-AT-LAW, 1005 WILLIAMSON BUILDING. Booker T. Washington, Esq., South Weymouth, Mass. My dear Mr. Washington:-

I am in receipt of yours of June 19th, and note what you say in reference to a meeting here.1 Your letter arrives on the eve of my departure for a western trip which will occupy two weeks or a little more.2 I will try to get speech with one or two influential friends of mine tomorrow, which is Sunday, and if I do not succeed will write to them or take the matter up immediately upon my return home. The leading social club in this city is the Union Club, which has many wealthy members and is exceedingly exclusive. The Colonial Club will come next in order. These two have elegant club houses. There is University Club, the Century Club, the Chamber of Commerce and some other organizations.3 I have no doubt it would be possible to arrange such a meeting as you suggest, and there is plenty of time ahead to do it.

Sincerely yours, Chas. W. Chesnutt



Correspondent: Booker T. Washington (1856–1913), one of the most well-known Black activists of the early 20th century, was born into slavery in Virginia; in 1881, he became the principal of what would become the Tuskegee Institute, advocating widely as a speaker and writer for technical education for Blacks, whose entry into American industry and business leadership he believed to be the road to equality. His political power was significant, but because he frequently argued for compromise with White Southerners, including on voting rights, he was also criticized by other Black activists, especially by W. E. B. Du Bois.



1. Booker T. Washington visited Ohio in November of 1902 and spoke in Cleveland on the 20th at Adelbert College (formerly Western Reserve College, later Case Western Reserve University); see Cleveland Gazette, November 15, 1902: 6.[back]

2. President Theodore Roosevelt wrote a letter to Governor Winfield Durbin of Indiana in which he condemned lynching and praised Durbin for a military intervention when Black citizens were attacked in Evansville, Indiana, in early July 1903. The letter was released to the press; see "President's View of Lynching," New York Tribune, August 10, 1903: 1.[back]

3. Chesnutt belonged to several Cleveland social clubs and highlighted their generally integrationist stance . The clubs mentioned here were mostly founded in the late 1800s by elite businessmen and had central locations downtown; the Century Club was a woman's club. [back]